Florida town: Get your pants off the ground or face 6 months in jail

A city in Florida doesn’t want people showing off their ‘whale tails,’ ‘plumber's cracks’ or boxers on public property so much that they banned the saggy-pants fashion statement within city limits.

“Lookin’ like a fool, walkin’ downtown with ya pants on the
ground,” ‘General’ Larry Platt famously sang in his
‘American Idol’ audition. “Giddy up! Get ya pants off the
ground!”

Officials in Ocala, Fla. agree with Platt’s sentiment so much
that city council unanimously passed an ordinance that prohibits
anyone on city property from wearing pants two inches or more
below a person’s natural waist.

"I just think it's disgraceful to show your underwear,"
Councilwoman Mary Rich said to
WFTV. "We try to be a nice, clean city. I think it'll
help clean it up some.”

Rich previously tried to pass the rule in 2009, but no one
seconded the motion. At the time, Mayor Kent Guinn objected to
the ordinance, in part because he thought it would lead to
profiling.

Rich said the ordinance applies to both genders and all races.

“It doesn’t matter what color they are,” Rich said,
according to the Washington Post blog
GovBeat. “They all wear their pants down.”

Guinn, who oversees the Ocala Police Department as part of his
mayoral duties, asked Rich at the council meeting how officers
were supposed to measure the distance between a suspect’s natural
waist and the waistband of the pants. He said it is not like seat
belts, which are either being worn or not, the Ocala Star-Banner
reported.

"We are not looking to charge people," City Attorney
Patrick Gilligan said. "If they don't comply, I think the
chief will tell police officers to take your phone out and take a
picture."

The sagging pants ordinance is enforceable on city-owned or
leased property, including sidewalks, streets, parks, sports,
recreation and public transportation facilities and parking lots.

When asked about a service worker, say a plumber, whose buttcrack
might show, "He will get a warning like everybody else,"
Gilligan said, according to the Star-Banner.

Police are expected to issue warnings to saggy-pantsed offenders
at first. After that, those caught with their pants down face a
$500 fine or jail time, WFTV reported.

MTV’s Rob Markman condemned the ordinance. “Still, it isn’t
the rap stars getting into hot water that’s the most troublesome,
it’s the thought that a local government can dictate how young
people dress,” the MTV News hip-hop beat
writer penned. “First it’s saggy jeans, next it’s the way
you tie your shoe laces (sic) or the way you wear your hat.”

Teacher Howard Gunn said he was concerned about enforcement.
"Most of these kids you are dealing with are ones that have
probably been in jail or are going to jail," Gunn told the
Ocala council. "A lot of times they are going through things.
And we slap this on them, they are going to go further."

"The kids are going to say something to you because they
don't know the law," Gunn said about the police. "And
then, there you go. Escalation. Now you have an assault on a
police officer."

Over the years, lawmakers around the country have proposed and
passed laws to try to crack down on the sagging pants trend.
In Fort Worth, Texas, you can’t sag and ride the city bus. In
Opaocka, Fla., refusing to tighten your trousers will cost you
$250. In Colinsville, Illinois, wearing saggy pants on any public
property is banned. And in New York, State Senator Eric Adams
used his own money to put up billboards that read, “Stop the
Sag.”

Airlines have booted people over it: Billie Joe Armstrong, the
frontman of the band Green Day, was kicked off a 2011 flight for
sagging his pants too low. So was then-University of New Mexico
football player Deshon Marman, who was also arrested (but not
charged) for the fashion statement.